


Home From the Sea

by Corinna



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s02e03 Runner, F/M, M/M, Sateda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-19
Updated: 2005-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corinna/pseuds/Corinna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Worst Case Scenario Challenge, for the prompt, "How to Survive a UFO Abduction."</p>
<p>Spoilers through 2x04 ("Duet")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home From the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [liviapenn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/liviapenn) for encouragement on my first work in a new fandom!

It wasn’t anything like being captured.

Ronon remembers being taken by the Wraith with clear bitter certainty. The sick hopelessness of knowing his taskmaster had betrayed him, the shuddering ache as the culling beam took him, the impotent rage when he found himself wrapped in their filthy webs, waiting to be fed upon. The days and years of running that followed were like a fever dream, towns and planets and fights slipping out of true time in memory, but he knew precisely what it was like to be taken captive by strangers who meant him harm. This wasn’t like that at all.

The doctor had insisted that he needed to finish caring for Ronon’s back, and Ronon had wanted to see the city of the Ancestors as soon as they mentioned it, so he went with them willingly, if warily. He had thought only to have his wound closed, to sleep on a clean bed and fill his belly, and then to return to Sateda to help his people rebuild. But now there was no returning to Sateda, and so he was staying in their city for now. He isn’t their captive, for all the guards they try to put on him. But seven years of running have made him wary nonetheless.

The city is a good place to be wary in. It’s full of long dark corridors, the sort a Wraith could hide in, and technology not even the people who live there fully understand. Colonel Sheppard had grinned like a schoolboy when he explained how it could read people’s thoughts, fulfill their wishes.

“Check it out,” he’d said. “Open sesame!” And the doors to Ronon’s quarters had opened, surprising the two soldiers in the hall. Sheppard had waved their guns down with a grin, and turned to Ronon as though he expected him to be pleased. Ronon has too much experience with the Wraith’s mind games to want to be part of anyone else’s, even the Ancestors. And so he continues to practice his mental disciplines, controlling his thoughts that the city might not know what was truly in his heart. Not that he is entirely sure he knows himself, sometimes.

Teyla Emmagan has the bearing of a queen, and the skills of a great warrior. When they fight, she can almost best him, and when she walks away, her skirts twitch around her legs in ways that make him ache to touch her. She is the only one like him here: the only one to whom he hasn’t had to explain anything about himself. Lying with her might be rest as well as release. He does not think she would refuse him.

But Colonel Sheppard is the one he finds himself thinking of more often. Sheppard is nonchalant where he should be vigilant, and softhearted where he should be stern, and yet his soldiers are still unquestioningly loyal. Sheppard’s body is long and lean, and his mouth looks soft, and he makes Ronon want to be part of something larger than himself again.  _Show me how a man fights, and I’ll tell you how he fucks_ , Kell had boasted. In the gym, with Sheppard looking on, Ronon had fought with all the grace and fire he could muster. Sheppard watched with an interest Ronon could feel on his skin, but still he has only ever had Sheppard’s hands on him in anger.

He is not sure that would change if he stayed: Sheppard would be his new taskmaster, true, but it does not seem to be the way here that taskmasters take their pleasures among their men. And Ronon is not sure that even now, he could take pleasure in being chosen by a taskmaster again. But when Sheppard smiles at him and offers him food from his own plate, Ronon feels warmed by Sheppard’s regard, and he realizes that he has already made his decision.


End file.
